And there goes September

Wow, 10 days since my last post, and it turns out that I only have two "draft" posts here, neither of which is ready yet for actual posting. I've taken a ton of photos over the past couple of weeks, and am trying to finish editing the last few photos as fast as I can (I'm almost done) before we leave in two days for the big wedding weekend (more below). So, there should be lots of posts coming soon: Natalie's Nutcracker audition, some photos from a work trip to Richmond, a weekend with friends that included a trip to the National Zoo and Pumpkinville the following day, and a local farm with my parents just this past weekend. Lots and lots to post about here! As I said, I'm trying to get through everything before we leave on Wednesday, although I doubt that will actually happen. We spent the evening getting almost everything packed, as I have a ton of errands to run tomorrow after work, and won't have time to finish packing then. We didn't finish until 10pm, and then I realized it was time to pay bills! So, no photo editing tonight. Here's hoping I can get some done tomorrow night, and a few posts lined up before we take off for Vermont.

That's right, on Wednesday we head out on a big road trip to Vermont for my brother-in-law's wedding! We're doing it as a two-part road trip up, staying with friends in New York on Wednesday night. This lets me see them for a bit (which I don't often get to do!), and not spend my entire birthday on Thursday driving for 10 hours - we should only have about 4 left after we leave their place. We meet up with our family on Thursday at the ski resort where we're staying (nearby to where the wedding is taking place), have a family dinner Thursday night, rehearsal and dinner on Friday, wedding Saturday, and then the long haul home all day Sunday. It will be quite the trip, but we can't wait. Not only do we get to spend those days with family (including Evan's other brother and his wife who are here all the way from Australia!), but I am also so excited to see New England in the fall. The scenery will be beautiful, and my soon-to-be sister-in-law has asked me to photograph her while she's getting ready with her bridesmaids on Saturday, and I am so excited to do that. There's another reason to get through photos now: I will have so many after this week! Can't wait to share them here and on my photography blog.

And, because I can't write a post without putting some kind of photo in, here's a super cute 3 month old African serval cat that Natalie and I were able to pet last weekend at Pumpkinville. All together: "Awwww"

Swim lessons at Ida Lee

This fall, we broke our "cardinal rule" (that we knew would have to be broken at some point) and scheduled the kids for an event on Saturday: swim lessons. We really wanted both of them to continue with their lessons, and the only way to realistically make it happen was to go on Saturday, as there is just too much going on during the week. Natalie's class is for 8 weeks; Henry's for 4. But we lucked out, and managed to get them in classes at the exact same time on Saturday morning! Score. Natalie is taking the same level she took over the summer one more time to get a little better at "side breathing" before moving onto the next class. While Henry is a bit old for it, we signed him up for parent/child one more time, as he feels more confident having us in the water with him. But this is it - after this, he goes into Waddler by himself with the other kids and teacher!

Evan took the kids himself on their first day, as I was out of town, but we all went last weekend. I got in the water this time, as he had the weekend before. That also put him on camera duty!

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to give him a complete demo of how to use the various setting on the camera, so he had a rough time with the relatively dim lighting and movement. However, I kind of like the blurred quality of some of these. Look, it's like we're ghosts!

We were all in the same pool (our class at the far end, and Natalie's class swimming back and forth closer to Evan). So, he was able to grab shots of her as well! I like this one a lot - the water looks like it's glowing!

Practicing that side breathing!

Henry's favorite part of the lesson is when he gets to jump in the water at the end. He loves launching himself at me!

Tomorrow is the third lesson, and we will be skipping it as we have house guests for the weekend. Next weekend will be Henry's last of this session, but Natalie will have 4 more in October. At least I don't have to get in the water with her!

Princess Spa Day

On Labor Day weekend, my friend Kelly and I took our girls to Sassy Princess Spa in Woodbridge. I found a deal online that included a princess mani/pedi and a makeup application. We knew the girls would have a blast, and it was fun to hang out with Kelly while the girls were having their fun. Afterwards we took them to get frozen yogurt...definitely my favorite part :)

The Sassy Spa is adorable - a girly girl's dream!

When the girls arrived, they each got to put on pink robes and then have their own manicurist for the duration.

After pedicure, it was time for manicure!

 

They felt so pampered afterwards!

Then it was time to sit in the makeup chairs and have their application: eye shadow, blush, and lipstick.

 

Natalie was very careful in choosing her shade of lipstick!

And then you HAVE to check yourself out in the mirror, right?

Two happy girls!

Last visit to Stratford Pool

On Labor Day, we took the kids for one last trip to our community pool. I don't normally bring my DSLR with me to the pool, but since I knew this would be the last opportunity for the season, I thought I'd take the risk, be careful, and capture some great photos!

When the whistle was blown for adult swim, the kids wanted to go in the baby pool.

The nice thing about this pool is that it allows Henry to try "swimming" like his sister does.

These kids do love the pool; good thing we're keeping them in swim lessons this fall so that they get to continue swimming!

Henry's first day of preschool

Well, the day finally arrived - yesterday Henry started preschool! We enrolled him at Ida Lee's Room to Grow program; the same one that Natalie just graduated from. The school served her quite well, and we anticipate Henry liking it just as much!

I went back and found Natalie's first day of preschool post from 2011. I've noticed a couple of things - not only does Henry now look a lot like Natalie then (look at those little faces!)
 

But the first day of preschool was very similar! We'll get to that in a second.

First, I wanted to take a few shots of Henry before we headed out to school. After Natalie got on the bus, I took Henry out front to take a few photos. Unfortunately he is not super cooperative with photos yet (hopefully that will come soon!), but I got a few cute shots.

 

He then asked if he could ride his bike. As we had time, it was his first day of school, and I knew it would allow for some cute photos, I said sure! 

After a few minutes, it was time to head to school. As I said, the day was similar to Natalie's first day. We started with playdoh at the tables (it requires some intense concentration!)

 

Followed by circle time with stories and songs (he is a rapt listener!)

 One activity was categorizing "big" and "small" items. All the kids got to participate; Henry was the only one who didn't want to go up and help place the items on the correct location. I wasn't surprised; it takes him a while to warm up in this type of situation.

 When the sub teacher noticed that he was feeling a little shy, she came and sat next to him and got him to participate in the song (see his hands moving!). Nicely done, teach!

The parents then all went downstairs for our "orientation" (this was new starting last year; two years ago for Natalie we stayed with the kids the entire two hours) while the kids had free play in the room. When we returned, we helped them with their craft project: creating an ocean scene.

 

The finished product!

 

We then took the kids outside to the playground, and that finished the first day of preschool. I think he liked it; I'm excited to see how he does tomorrow when we leave him for the full 3 hours.

A.V. Symington 2013

After not going at all last summer (the last time we went was Labor Day 2011, apparently!), or earlier this summer, we finally packed up the kids and a picnic lunch over Labor Day weekend and went back to A.V. Symington in Leesburg. What a huge difference two years makes! Last tripe, we weren't able to take the kids out of the toddler wading area (unless carried by us, or on our laps in the lazy river)...this year, we couldn't get Natalie off of the "big kid" slides!

We ran into some friends of ours (Natalie's friend Nola and her dad); the girls had a blast going down the slides together.

Then, Natalie discovered the blue tunnel slide. She was freaked out by the idea of dropping into the water, and wanted to watch me go. Even then, she wasn't so sure about it. I went over to the adult slides (twisty ones that you have to be at least 48" tall to ride; Natalie doesn't quite make the cut yet!), and by the time I got back, Natalie was an old pro at this slide. After she watched Nola go down it with no fear, she was ready to try it herself...again, and again, and again!

I *just* missed her coming out of the bottom, but I did get her big splash!

The other way to get the "OK" for her to go on the twisty slides was if she passed the swim test. This has two requirements: 1) tread water for 30 seconds; 2) swim the length of the pool. I was positive she could do the first, as shown below:

We weren't completely sure yet that she could do the second part, and she didn't seem to really want to try, so we let it go. Next summer she will be tall enough to go on the slides without taking the test, and she'll be a better swimmer by then anyway!

None of this stopped her from wanting Daddy to throw her into the water.

And where was Henry with all of this? Well, we kept trying to get him to go on the little kid slides...sadly, he wanted NO part of that. I'm not sure why...he's gone down water slides earlier this summer at other parks, and even done this slide himself two years ago! That's our cautious boy...guess it's better than being crazy and all over the place, right?!

He still had a blast. We went around the lazy river a few times (him sitting on my lap); he loved when the water poured down on us from above. He swam around some, climbed on both of us,

...and ultimately had the best time jumping into the pool. 

We then came up with a game where I sat on the edge of the pool and threw him at Evan. That was his favorite part (and of course my most terrifying), but we were unable to get video of that (obviously). I'm glad we were able to spend about 3 hours there, just before it closed for the season...can't wait to go next year!